WEEK1: 12 Principles of Animation/ Bouncing ball and Maze/ Extra works

Part 1 — 12 Principles of Animation

In this week’s course, I have a deep understanding of 12 principles of animation. include:

n this week’s course, I have a deep understanding of 12 principles of animation. include:

1. Squash and stretch 2 (Squash and stretch are used to express the elasticity of objects!)
2. Anticipation (the action of a character is generally divided into three stages: the action preparation stage, the action implementation stage and the action following stage. Action preparation is generally used to guide the audience’s sight toward the upcoming action. So a common long-term preparatory action It means that the following actions will be very fast.)
3. Staging (The so-called staging is to clearly express the intention of the action to make it easy to understand. Normally, the action is presented to the audience at one time. But if there are too many things at the same time, the audience will not know what to do Where to pay attention, so that the action will lose meaning.)
4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose (two basic methods of making animation. One is to draw from the first frame one by one until the entire sequence is drawn. The other is to draw key frames first, and then this Make an intermediate frame based on it.)
5. Follow through and overlapping action 2 (This rule is similar to Anticipation, except that the former appears after the movement ends, and the latter appears before the action. More specifically: the movement of the object or part of it has exceeded it should stop Position, then fold back to return to that position)
6. Slow in and slow out 2 (The law of motion is used in the process of acceleration or deceleration of the object Pose. When the object approaches a certain pose, it usually decelerates. On the contrary, when the object starts from one Pose to another When a Pose changes, it should be accelerated)
7. Arc 2 (In real life, all movements are arcs. When used as an animation, we should let the action follow a curve instead of a linear straight line)
8. Secondary action (This principle is used to increase the fun and reality of the animation, and to enrich the details of the action. It must be detectable, but not exceed the main action.)
9. Timing 2 (Timing is actually “rhythm” and is the basic element of animation. The speed of movement of an object explains the physical nature of the object and the cause of the movement)
10. Exaggeration (Exaggeration processing on the action is used to emphasize the changes in the rhythm, amplitude, expression and other aspects of the action, so that the audience can have a deeper feeling)
11. Solid drawing (enhance the three-dimensional sense)
12. Appeal (This rule means that the action should be able to attract the audience. It is embodied in the charm of the action, pattern design, simplicity and degree of audience interaction, etc.)

Part 2 — Ball Bounce

In Bouncing ball, I adopted Timing, Squash and stretch, Slow in and slow out, Arc of 12 principles of animation. The following is after this class, I simulated the tutorial and made the ball landing motion. Due to the influence of air resistance and friction, the ball gradually stops moving.

Slow in and slow out

The animation law can make the movement of objects more realistic. In 3D animation, it is specifically used in the Graphic Editor. By adjusting the movement curve, the rhythm of the movement of the object is changed. The following figure shows the movement curve before and after adjustment.

Before

After

Video comparison

In this video, the ball above corresponds to the previous movement. The ball below is the movement after adjustment, and the importance of the animation rule can be clearly found through comparison.

Timing，Squash and stretch

These two animation rules can reflect the texture of objects from the side. Different materials can be used in subsequent projects to achieve better results. First test the timing:

From the video, we can see the role of Timing in reflecting the texture of the object. The material of the fast moving ball may be rubber or metal. The material of the slower ball may be a balloon. However, this is only by controlling the movement rhythm. On this basis, I tried adding Squash and stretch. The video is as follows:

This video reflects the before and after comparison of adding Squash and stretch under the same movement rhythm. It can be clearly found that the animation law has the advantages of animation motion effects and object elasticity.
Through these few animation exercises, I have a preliminary understanding of the role of animation rules. Although I have not studied in this direction before, I gradually realized its importance, so I will try to master the 12 rules of animation in my future studies.

Part 3 — Bouncing Ball Maze

In Bouncing ball Maze, I used 12 principles of animation Timing, Squash and stretch, Slow in and slow out, Arc.
The main idea of my maze is to simulate the movement of a small rubber ball. Among them is an accelerator to provide power for the disappearing ball to make it out of the maze. In the process, I also carried out visual design, with the latest Quixel Bridger and mixer, which was recommended for learning in discord. To strengthen and consolidate basic software skills.
First, the maze design:

As shown in the figure is the movement path of the ball. Above the maze, due to the influence of air resistance and friction, the movement speed of the ball gradually slows down. After passing the middle cross, the ball will be speeded up again to get out of the maze. Through this simple design, exercise your own skills in making small balls.

Slow in and slow out

First of all, you need to adjust the motion path of the ball through the Graphic editor. As shown in the figure, my XYZ coordinates are reversed. This is a major mistake I made this time.

Squash and stretch

After adjusting the movement path, I increased the deformation of the object when it collided, emphasized the elasticity of the object, and made the movement more natural.

Texturing

In addition, I also studied the use of Mixer this week, and combined with this exercise, first download some good-looking basic materials in Bridger. Then import Mixer to make personalized materials. The biggest difference between Mixer and Substance painter is that the former is mixed up and down, while the latter is mixed by layers.

Then texturing in MAYA. In this process, I added a Gamma node to the roughness map, which can make the anti-broadcast more realistic.

The following is the overall rendering effect after rendering

After the teacher’s guidance, I summarized the movement problems of the two small balls: After the small ball hits the ground for the first time, the speed of falling down should change from slow to faster. Secondly, when the ball reaches the left, the ascent height should be higher.

This video is a modified Playblast.

Extra work

In my spare time during the first week, I learned some how to use quixel’s Bridger and mixer, and how to import materials into Unreal 4.

Bridger

Bridger can be understood as a resource library. In bridger, we can get high-definition textures and models at the fastest speed. At the same time, bridger can be used in conjunction with Unreal 4.

The picture above is the export settings of Bridger, and the path of the installation folder must be correct!

If a green icon appears in Unreal 4, it means that Bridger and Unreal 4 can be successfully used together.

Mixer

In Mixer, we can import some materials from bridger and mix them to form new materials.

The picture shows some of my tests. Through practice using Mixer, I succeeded in making a broken wall and street floors when it rains.